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[Fresh New Beats]

sorry - I drafted up a longer response and lost it because tab->backspace. 

 

I'm going to use your comments about shrapnel and twist them into something bigger - about balancing gameplay - because I have an axe to grind. 

 

Shrap isn't random - it does fixed damage and flies at a fixed angle. The pseudo-random elements that might lead to the scenario you're talking about are 1) repels and 2) shrap bouncing off tiles because the bomb exploded at a fortuitous point on the map. Should we remove repels and tiles, then? 

 

Your general argument looks like one that's been made many times before: remove randomness to reward skilled play. That's a gameplay balance question - do you reward skill exclusively, or do you preserve some element of randomness in order to keep less-dedicated players rewarded and invested? How long do you think a skill-based game like poker would last if you took all the randomness out of it, and the superior players won every time?  

 

4v4 has always been the top-of-the-heap skill arena, and people have used that status to argue in favor of taking all the random out. That might have been fine when there were other SVS or pseudo-SVS arenas to serve as incubators for those who are dedicated - but 4v4 is more or less all that's left.

 

Look at all the ways the deck is already stacked in favor of the hard-core players:

1. the arena format itself is stacked in favor of skill - winning cap stays in, winning cap can decide who to play with (.ban), and who to play against (.forcecap). losing players sit.Â
2. the 4v4 format is stacked in favor of skill - the 3 life limit means inferior players get targeted, straight up.
3. the gameplay is stacked in favor of skill - most random elements are long gone from the game (bullets, shrap), and others are nerfed (green rewards are random, but don't have much impact on play)
   

I'm not saying these are bad things. Hell, I think most would argue that the reason 4v4 has lasted this long is that it is a skill game. But we all know we aren't getting new players to replace the ones who drift away, and that's mostly because what you're arguing for comes at a cost, and the cost is borne by those players who don't have 50 hours a week to get good. 

 

ETA: As others have pointed out, the prac arenas are dominated (especially on weeknights) by the same 10-15 people, day in, day out. That's great for them - they get to play - but is it good for the game itself, or anybody who doesn't have either 50 hours a week or a pre-existing group of pilots to play with?